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Theresa May with her joint chief of staff Nick Timothy [Image: Reuters].

It’s been a while but the Tory election fraud investigation is still taking place, even if it hasn’t been in the news much.

Police forces across England are holding inquiries into allegations that the Conservative Party overspent on the 2015 general election and hid the extra funding for individual candidates as ‘national’ expenditure.

It has emerged that Nick Timothy, Theresa May’s chief of staff, must now help police with their inquiries about the election in South Thanet, where the Conservatives made strenuous – and eventually successful – efforts to prevent Nigel Farage from gaining a Parliamentary seat.

Did they break the law?

Theresa May’s joint chief of staff faces questions after allegations surfaced that he “provided assistance” to an election campaign in 2015 now under investigation by police.

It comes after Channel 4, earlier this year, claimed that the cost of dozens of hotel rooms used by Tory officials and activists in the South Thanet constituency had not been declared on the Tory candidate Craig Mackinlay’s spending returns, which was limited to around £15,000.

Instead, the costs were declared on the party’s national spending returns. The Conservative party focused a significant amount of resources on fighting the constituency in an attempt to prevent Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader, from entering Parliament. In the end he was defeated by 2,812 votes.

But now Channel 4 alleges that Nick Timothy, a close aide of the Prime Minister, was involved in Mr Mackinlay’s local campaign from a hotel in Ramsgate.

According to the broadcaster, Kent Police and the Electoral Commission are currently investigating whether the party failed to declare expenditure in hotel bills.